Online Document: Today In History

Today is Wednesday, April 29, the 119th day of 1998. There are 246 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:On April 29, 1992, deadly rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

On this date:

In 1429, Joan of Arc entered the besieged city of Orleans to lead a victory over the English.

In 1861, Maryland's House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union.

In 1862, New Orleans fell to Union forces during the Civil War.

In 1916, the Easter Rising in Dublin collapsed as Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities.

In 1945, American soldiers liberated the Dachau concentration camp; that same day, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and designated Adm. Karl Doenitz his successor.

In 1946, 28 former Japanese leaders were indicted as war criminals.

In 1974, President Nixon announced he was releasing edited transcripts of some secretly made White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

In 1983, Harold Washington was sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago.

In 1996, former CIA Director William Colby was missing and presumed drowned after an apparent boating accident in Maryland; his body was later recovered.

Ten years ago: McDonald's announced it would open its first restaurants in Moscow.

Five years ago: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II announced that, for the first time, Buckingham Palace would be opened to tourists to help raise money for repairs at fire-damaged Windsor Castle.

One year ago: Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. Sentenced to 25 years in prison, he was dishonorably discharged. A worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons went into effect. Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk. Newspaper columnist Mike Royko died in Chicago at age 64.